Monday, May 31, 2021

Honoring the martyrs of the race course

By William Haupt III | The Center Square contributor

A Memorial Day (Decoration Day) weekend afternoon view at Fort Sheridan Cemetery. - Michael Heimlich | Shutterstock.com

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

– Dr. Martin Luther King

Since the tragic death of George Floyd, America has witnessed one tragedy after another as the media has fueled one of the most divisive periods in history since the Civil War’s brother against brother. Lost in the ashes of this unrest and unfound claims of systematic racism and the decadent anti-forgiving cancel culture of woke-ism are memories of many of our nation’s greatest unifiers.

No historical event has left a deeper imprint on America’s memory than the U.S. Civil War of 1861.

By 1865, a war-torn North and South began the slow and painful process of reconciliation. Hidden deep within the archives during unification are some of America’s greatest moments. These events emphasize the appreciation of Black Americans for the heroes who once wore the Blue and Gray.

United States Colored Troops (USCT) - National Archives Record 

Lost in our national culture is much of the sincere empathy for the contributions of Black Americans during and after the war. Untold and forgotten events that helped win the war and reunify “brother with brother” remind us that many of these moral crusades were some of our greatest victories.

United States Colored Troops, aka USCT, embodied Frederick Douglass’ belief that “he who would be free must himself strike the blow." A total of 179,000 Black patriots, many of whom were former slaves, volunteered to fight for the Union in the Civil War. Over 37,000 gave their lives in a war they knew they had to win. With every battle they fought, the USCT proved that they could out-duel any foe.

Recruiting Broadside for United States Colored Troops, from Freeman, Elsie, Wynell Burroughs Schamel, and Jean West. “The Fight for Equal Rights: A Recruiting Poster for Black Soldiers in the Civil War.”

USCT units displayed courage under fire and won glory on the fields of battle at Port Hudson in Louisiana, Fort Wagner in South Carolina, New Market Heights, Spotsylvania and Wilson's Wharf in Virginia. Records indicate that over 10% of the Union army was comprised of Black Americans.

“We need more people with enough patriotism to live up to the Constitution.”

– Frederick Douglass

The USCT were a watershed in American history, and one of the first major strides toward equal civil rights. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass said that when the USCT was formed it transformed the Civil War from a conflict for restoration of the Union into a moral crusade to end American slavery.

Besides the patriotic USCT, many other Black Americans contributed to the critical rebuilding of our broken union. Most of these were former slaves who remained in the south following the Civil War during Reconstruction. Despite economic hardship, segregation, and denial of equal rights, they were grateful for every soldier of every color who fought and died to deliver them their freedom.

One of the casualties of war is the graves of so many unknown heroes. After the American Civil War, a battered America faced the task of burying and honoring 800,000 Union and Confederate soldiers. Shortly after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865, groups of former slaves gathered in Charleston, South Carolina, to pay tribute to and memorialize the unknown fallen Union soldiers.

Washington Race Track 1792-1900 - The grandstand on the north side of the course was erected in 1836. This 1857 view of the grandstand was published in John Beaufain Irving's The South Carolina Jockey Club.

Charleston’s Washington Race Track had been transformed by the Confederate army into a prison. Prisoners were confined there without medical supplies, shelter, or sanitation with little food to eat. Over 250 died of war wounds and diseases. They were dumped into a massive grave site behind the grandstand.

”It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.”

– Robert E. Lee

To Black Americans in Charleston, the former Washington Race Track and Union graveyard was a painful reminder of the despicable and inhumane treatment that had been inflicted upon those that liberated them. Many of them had been forced to help bury these heroes in this communal grave.

Library of Congress preserves this photo taken in 1865 while the African-American reconstruction of the cemetery in Charleston was in progress. The rows of markers are newly established individual Union graves.

As these grateful citizens watched the Confederates leave Charleston, they would return to the race track and pray for the soldiers. Black workmen came back to the gravesite and reburied the Union soldiers with dignity. To protect the graves and preserve their memory they built a fence around the cemetery with these words inscribed at the entrance; “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

“If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”

– Martin Luther King

According to reports in The Charleston Courier, on May 1, 1865, a crowd of over 10,000 former slaves, white abolitionists and missionaries staged a parade around the race track. Over 3,000 Black children laid flowers upon the graves and sang gospel music. The famed Black-American 54th regiment and other USCT troops performed a special march around the gravesite of these fallen Union soldiers. Black ministers led people in prayer and recited Bible verses in their memory.

The first national commemoration of Decoration Day (renamed Memorial Day after WW II to honor all fallen soldiers) was held in Arlington National Cemetery on May 30, 1868. People came from states around the U.S. to pay tribute to both Union and Confederate soldiers. Some 5,000 people decorated the graves of over 20,000 Civil War soldiers from both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line.

 Picture of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Burial of Federal dead. It was taken in 1864 by Timothy H. O'Sullivan, 1840-1882.

Cities in the North and South, from Macon, Georgia to Richmond, Virginia to Carbondale, Illinois, claim they held the first Decoration Day. Yet, the actual founding of this holiday and most official accounts of why it was a special day for the freed slaves of Charleston, South Carolina, have been erased from public memory and have been removed from Common Core public school textbooks.

Abraham Lincoln said, “We cannot escape our history.” In 450 BC, Greek author Herodotus wrote the first history book to warn future Greeks about the tragic Greco-Persian Wars so future cultures would not repeat them.

“The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance’’

– Herodotus

Our public schools and the liberal media are depriving generations of Americans of knowledge of salient events and moral tributes by groups and individuals that helped bring Americans together at critical times in our history. These were special people that did special things that built bridges over past cataclysms. They refused to dwell on the past and helped build a better future for Americans.

We can’t predict the future but we can avoid repeating our past mistakes if we know what we did wrong and what we did right. If we do not revisit our failures and our achievements we are doomed to fail again. Those who have no knowledge of their past lack the tools needed for a better future.

When former slaves honored their Union liberators on the first Decoration Day, it was the beginning of the healing for America after the Civil War. These former slaves wished to mourn those who died for their freedom and forgave those who had oppressed them. America needed healing and these former slaves paved the way for all America. Maybe we can do the same again on Decoration Day.


“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”

– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/op-ed-honoring-the-martyrs-of-the-race-course/article_b381efb2-c20a-11eb-a171-83c59d8422d7.html

Sunday, May 30, 2021

Republicans Show Real Backbone In Blocking January 6th Commission Political Theater

 BY STACEY LENNOX | P J MEDIA

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Republicans in the Senate held together to thwart attempts to form a commission to investigate the trespassing and minor property damage that happened at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. We should all refuse to call it an insurrection or even a riot at this point if for no other reason than to frustrate the left—in particular, leading Democrats like this bitter former presidential candidate who keeps lying to her followers:

It is well established that the only person who died that day due to violence at the Capitol was Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed veteran and Trump supporter. The identity of the Capitol Police officer who shot her remains unknown, unlike officers in the past year who have shot suspects to save their own lives or the lives of others. Officer Sicknick’s death was used as a prop by anti-law-enforcement Democrats in the wake of January 6th. His death was incorrectly included in the bogus second impeachment of President Trump.

If leading Democrats are still willing to make this kind of debunked assertion, the goal of their commission is crystal clear. It is to persecute their political enemies and keep President Trump and his supporters front and center as cover for their radical agenda and the repeated failures of the Biden administration. It would also bolster their fever dreams about the right-wing violence the DHS and DOJ keep talking about in the absence of any credible threats. Republicans are absolutely right to deny them the opportunity.

At this point, the biggest regret surrounding January 6 is losing the moral high ground on political violence. After a summer of riots, arson, and looting by the radical left that caused upwards of a billion dollars in damage that will linger in affected communities, there was no comparator on the right. If Democrats have no interest in finding out who funded and led those costly and far more deadly riots, they can just wait for the Justice Department to finish rounding up Trump supporters.

Additionally, Jan. 6th was not the most heinous attack on the Capitol, and Democrat leaders in Congress know that because they are nearly as old as dirt. In 1971 a bombing at the Capitol building by members of the Weather Underground caused almost $2 million in damage in today’s dollars. The leader of that group, Bill Ayers, is now a celebrated figure on the left and moves in elite circles.

In 1983, a bomb tore through the second floor of the Senate wing, causing the modern equivalent of more than $1.5 million. A faction of the May 19th Communist Order claimed responsibility and later set off bombs at Fort McNair and the Washington Navy Yard. Susan Rosenberg was among the members arrested in 1984, and President Bill Clinton commuted her sentence on his last day in office.

Now she is on the board of 1000 Currents, a not-for-profit that loaned its status to Black Lives Matter Inc. for fundraising during last summer’s violence, bringing political violence from the left full circle. Neither of these bombings ever received a congressional investigation. The FBI handled criminal investigations, and the DOJ conducted prosecutions. There is absolutely no reason Congress should handle January 6th any differently.

Hopefully, the move to deny Democrats a commission will also frustrate squishy Republicans who are in desperate need of a wake-up call and deprive them of the platform to continue screaming about the bad orange man. Their Trump Derangement Syndrome is nearly as terminal as Rep. Liz Cheney’s, and they are almost as good at insulting their grassroots voters. Of course, the usual suspects voted with their Democrat colleagues:

---

TWEET

Jessi Turnure

@JessiTurnure

The Senate just blocked debate on the bill to establish a Jan. 6 commission to investigate the attack on the U.S. Capitol- 60 yeas were necessary to end the filibuster but the final vote tally was 54-35. #NexstarDC

Eleven senators were absent for the procedural vote. All Democrats present voted yes and six Republicans joined them:

Cassidy

Collins

Murkowski

Portman

Romney

Sasse

----

Now the Republicans willing to stand up and oppose a politicized commission need to join Senators Dick Durbin and Elizabeth Warren in demanding that those arrested for January 6 be moved out of solitary confinement. Every single one. Then they need to insist that courts set appropriate bail for those who committed what are essentially property crimes. Some have been in jail for months, and there have been several allegations of abuse by corrections officers. GOP members should begin preparing their exhibits showing the charges dropped against antifa and Black Lives Matter by the DOJ while those arrested related to January 6 sit in jail. It will be a stark comparison.

Republicans also need to demand the return of the personal electronic equipment, and immediate restitution for damage to the home of an Alaska couple falsely identified and detained for questioning in their home for hours. Why the FBI seized their property in the first place is a mystery. Add to that an end to FISA warrants on American citizens not linked to foreigners and warrantless searches of travel, banking, and other records searching for anyone who may have attended President Trump’s speech.

Continuation of a two-tiered justice system based on political ideology will only open the door to political persecution. We see increased antisemitic violence by those who side with the Palestinians in a political conflict. When President Trump resumes rallies, will violence against his supporters be tolerated as it was in 2016? At this point, it’s pretty easy to presume that it will.

A question that needs to be asked: If a person entered the Capitol after this exchange, can you even consider it trespassing? You have to wonder what the other 14,000 hours of withheld video may show.

________________

Stacey Lennox is a recovering Fortune 500 executive and healthcare professional. Busting the COVID-19 narrative under the VIP tab to avoid the censors. PJ Media readers can hear Stacey on the weekly Loftus Party podcast with comedian Michael Loftus and multiple shows a week on KLRN Radio.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stacey-lennox/2021/05/28/republicans-were-right-to-block-the-politically-motivated-january-6th-commission-n1450610?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=227841a8b1ca836b99e21ea36efa6859&recip=28551147

MEMORIAL DAY OBSERVANCE: MONDAY, MAY 31

 

Memorial Day honors the men and women who died while serving in the United States military. Observances include visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades.

This day of remembrance was originally known as Decoration Day. It originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971.

Saturday, May 29, 2021

Twitter Continues to Beclown Itself

BY BRYAN PRESTON | P J Media

AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

Is there a Hindi word for “chutzpah”? If there is, Twitter should learn it. The social media platform mostly known for its ghastly, rampant trolls and for de-platforming Trump and conservatives is telling India — an entire country with over a billion people — to respect free speech.

Once you’ve stopped laughing at the absurdity, read on.

Twitter on Thursday said it is worried about the safety of its staff in India and called for the government to respect freedom of expression, days after Indian police visited its office in New Delhi over its labeling of a tweet by a governing party spokesman as “manipulated media.”

Twitter has been involved in a tense battle with the Indian government, which has often asked it to restrict content alleging Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration is trying to silence criticism, including of its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Twitter said it has “concerns with regards to the use of intimidation tactics by the police” and “the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve.”

India’s government denies Twitter’s allegations, which Jack Dorsey aka Tweetsputin issued from a massive 25,000-square-foot glass house that BLM’s Patrisse Cullors probably wants to buy from him.

Twitter, you see, doesn’t respect free speech. At all. We all remember Twitter banning Trump.

Twitter went after a bunch of conservatives after de-platforming Trump, mostly because it could.

It also banned the Chinese virologist back in September when she said COVID was man-made. Whether it was or not, and that debate is rising to the fore now, what good did this ban do except to make people more interested in the information that Twitter made forbidden?

Twitter blocked the now-proven story about Hunter Biden’s laptop and its contents, which demonstrate financial connections between Joe Biden and the Chinese Communist Party by way of Chinese corporations and Hunter’s bank account. Why did Twitter ban that? Clearly, to stick its agenda into the presidential election (Facebook did the same grotesque thing, no reason to let them off the hook, but this post is about Twitter). With Biden in office, it’s possible the Chinese Communist Party has its hooks directly into U.S. foreign and domestic policy. Thanks, Twitter. You evil gremlins.

Twitter locked Jason Whitlock’s account. His thought-crime? He accurately criticized Black Lives Matters co-founder and grifter Patrisse Cullors, who has used the insurrectionist Marxist movement (they literally want to dismantle the nation) to amass a decent fortune including four houses in toney white neighborhoods. Why is criticizing Cullors — who advocates defunding police, which is getting Americans killed, and who just resigned amid a financial scandal — off-limits? Because Twitter says so, so shut up or it’ll ban you too.

Twitter’s chief functions seem to be to quash facts that hurt the left and to penalize people who are ahead of the curve and tell the truth.

So, Twitter, kindly shut your pie hole on free speech and free expression. You’re literally the worst.

___________________


Bryan Preston is the author of Hubble's Revelations: The Amazing Time Machine and Its Most Important Discoveries. He's a writer, producer, veteran, author, and Texan.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/05/28/try-not-to-laugh-twitter-tells-india-to-respect-free-expression-n1450468?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=227841a8b1ca836b99e21ea36efa6859&recip=28551147

 

 

BLM Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors Steps Down From BLM With Four Mansions, Possibly a 5th, to Pursue a Marxist Life

BY KEVIN DOWNEY JR. | P J Media

(Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

“Racism” Pays

BLM co-founder, mega-millionaire Marxist, race-baiter, and mansion-collector Patrisse Cullors is stepping down from BLM amidst a financial scandal. It seems Cullors has made enough money off the bodies of dead black men. She told AP it’s time to focus on her second book and her TV deal with Warner Brothers.

Cullors says her leaving BLM has been planned for about a year and has nothing to do with the New York Post story regarding her four mansions, all in white neighborhoods, and a fifth home she is looking at in the Bahamas, in the same luxury resort as Justin Timberlake and Tiger Woods. Homes there sell for from $5 million to $20 million dollars each. Fellow Marxist Bernie Sanders must be proud. 

Cullors acquired her swanky empire while stating that the housing market is “racist” and full of “white supremacists.”

Last year, as BLM protestors were burning America, Cullors bought a “custom ranch” on 3.2 acres in rural Conyers, Ga., with a private airplane hangar, replete with a large studio apartment above it, as well as the use of a 2,500-foot paved/grass community runway that can accommodate small airplanes. Not bad for a Marxist. 

Big tech did their part to protect Cullors when the New York Post, Tucker Carlson, AND other members of BLM went on the attack. Facebook blocked links to the New York Post story. Twitter locked conservative writer Jason Whitlock out of his account after he tweeted a link to a report and mocked Cullors for buying a home in an area of Topanga Canyon, Calif., outside of Malibu, with a black population of 1.4%. As expected, she labeled the aforementioned New York Post story as “racist” and full of “white supremacy.”

The attacks on Cullors aren’t just coming from the phantom right-wing, “racists” and “white supremacists” Cullors mentions every time things don’t go her way. Hawk Newsome, the head of Black Lives Matter Greater New York City, which is not affiliated with Cullors’ Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, called for “an independent investigation” to find out how and where the global BLM network spends its money.

“If you go around calling yourself a socialist, you have to ask how much of her own personal money is going to charitable causes,” he said. “It’s really sad because it makes people doubt the validity of the movement and overlook the fact that it’s the people that carry this movement.”

Cullors responded to the threat with legal action and denied any association with Newsome. She also added that Newsome had no right to use the Black Lives Matter name.

Cullors’s last day of cashing in on the myth of systemic racism is set for May 28.

____________

Kevin Downey, Jr. Is a comedian and columnist. When he isn't writing or performing on stage he is collecting surf records and perhaps practicing his mixologist skills at his tiki bar. His apartment, the Atomic Bunker,  looks like it was furnished from George Jetson's garage sale.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2021/05/28/blm-co-founder-patrisse-cullors-steps-down-from-blm-with-four-mansions-possibly-a-5th-to-pursue-a-marxist-life-n1450374?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=227841a8b1ca836b99e21ea36efa6859&recip=28551147

 

Friday, May 28, 2021

BURISMA REVISITED

BY JOHN HINDERAKER | POWERLINE 


Joe Biden is a classic corrupt politician. He has used his decades in public office to enrich himself and his family in a manner that we usually associate with graft-seeking politicians of the 19th Century. The Burisma story, from which the Democratic Party press studiously averted its eyes, is a perfect example.

Joe’s son Hunter was given a place on Burisma’s board of directors and paid a salary of $1 million per year, making him by far the highest-paid person associated with Burisma. No Burisma employee, and no one else on Burisma’s board, made anywhere near that much money. This despite the fact that Hunter did not speak Ukrainian, knew nothing about the natural gas industry, and was a drug-addled, barely employable neer-do-well.

The money obviously was intended as a bribe for the benefit of then-Vice President Joe Biden, who was in charge of Ukraine policy for the Obama administration. No one is dumb enough to write a check to a politician so as to document a bribe. Rather, the check is written to a bag man. That was the role that Hunter played here.

All of this is a well-known story, to those who pay attention if not to readers who rely on the New York Times. Now an additional fact has come to light: Burisma cut Hunter’s income in half when Joe’s term as Vice President ended.

The Ukrainian energy company that was paying President Biden’s son Hunter $1 million a year cut his monthly compensation in half two months after his father ceased to be vice president.

From May 2014, Burisma Holdings Ltd. was paying Hunter $83,333 a month to sit on its board, invoices on his abandoned laptop show.

But in an email on March 19, 2017, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi asked Hunter to sign a new director’s agreement and informed him “the only thing that was amended is the compensation rate.”
***
After the email, the amount listed on Hunter’s monthly Burisma invoices was reduced to $41,500, effective from May 2017.

Burisma helpfully pointed out that “the remuneration is still the highest in the company.” Here is the March 19 email:

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

Note that in addition to Hunter Biden, the email was addressed to Robert Biden. Hunter’s real first name is Robert, and I assume this is just another email address for him. In addition, the email went to Eric Schwerin and Joan Peugh. Schwerin is Hunter’s partner in the lobbying firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair. And Joan Peugh is a “Senior Adviser” in Rosemont Seneca Partners, a shady “investment firm” that was co-founded by Hunter. Devon Archer was a founder of Rosemont along with Hunter Biden. He, like Biden, served on Burisma’s board, but at a much lower salary. In 2018 Archer was convicted on securities fraud and conspiracy charges.

It is blindingly obvious that Hunter’s association with Burisma–which is to say, Joe Biden’s association–was all about influence peddling, not natural gas. And we know for a fact that when the time came for Burisma to seek influence at a high level of the U.S. State Department, its lobbyists at Blue Star Strategies specifically invoked the fact that “two high profile U.S. citizens are associated with the company (including Hunter Biden as a board member).” The millions paid to the Biden family evidently paid off, as the State Department scheduled a meeting that took place within a week of the Biden name being invoked. Joe was Vice President at the time.

If Joe Biden were a Republican, this would be the most famous scandal since Teapot Dome. And, in fact, it is vastly worse than Teapot Dome. Moreover, Burisma is just one instance of Joe Biden selling his political influence, or perceived political influence, for cash. A few others are known only because they were documented on the laptop that Hunter apparently forgot in a drug-induced haze, or in emails from Hunter that have otherwise come to light. No one knows how many other instances of Biden corruption may have occurred.

And no one ever will know, if the Democratic Party press has anything to say about it.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/05/burisma-revisited.php

Thursday, May 27, 2021

For 2022, Trump Returns to the Secret Sauce That Gave the GOP Congress in a Historic Landslide

BY TYLER O'NEIL | P J Media


AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Setting his sights on the 2022 midterm elections, former President Donald Trump has begun crafting a policy agenda that echoes a historic Republican election victory under a Democratic president, the “Contract with America” in 1994. Trump has also brought in the man responsible for the 1994 midterm victories, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

In recent weeks, Trump has sat down with Gingrich, Mark Meadows (his former chief of staff and a former Republican congressman), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) at Mar-a-Lago to begin crafting a document to spearhead 2022 Republican victories just as the Contract with America helped propel Republicans to majorities in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, Politico reported.

Gingrich told Politico that the 2022 “Contract with America” will not likely debut soon, but he did list many potential priorities for the document.

“It should be positive,” Gingrich said. “School choice, teaching American history for real, abolishing the ‘1619 Project,’ eliminating critical race theory and what the Texas legislature is doing. We should say, ‘Bring it on.'”

Political observers credited the original “Contract with America” with propelling the GOP to historic election victories in 1994. Before that election, Democrats had firm majorities in the House (256 Democrats to 176 Republicans) and Senate (57 Democrats to 43 Republicans). After that election, Republicans dominated the House (230 Republicans to 197 Democrats) and Senate (53 Republicans to 47 Democrats). The 1994 midterms gave Republicans a whopping 52 seats in the House and 9 seats in the Senate.

Republicans have used the “Contract with America” in other elections since. In 2010, the so-called Republican “Young Guns,” led by Reps. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), and Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), introduced an updated Contract with America before the 2010 Republican wave. Graham, who signed the contract in his 1994 House race, has advocated for Republicans to adopt contract-style declarations to unify the party.

Trump’s decision to return to the 1994 playbook will likely help the GOP gear up for key races in 2022. President Joe Biden has already presided over growing inflation, persistent unemployment, high gas prices, a historic border crisis, and war in the Middle East, much of which has been his own doing. The 2020 census will also give Republicans a slight edge in the 2022 midterms.

If the GOP wins big next year in an echo of 1994, Biden seems unlikely to follow Bill Clinton’s lead by moving to the center and working with the Republican Congress. Expect an Obama-style retrenchment and more “pen-and-phone” tactics.

________________

Senior editor of PJ Media, Tyler O'Neil is an author and conservative commentator. He has written for numerous publications, including The Christian Post, National Review, The Washington Free Beacon, The Daily Signal, AEI's Values & Capitalism, and the Colson Center's Breakpoint. He enjoys Indian food, board games, and talking ceaselessly about politics, religion, and culture. He has appeared on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight." He is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/05/26/making-congress-great-again-trump-resurrects-successful-gop-strategy-for-2022-n1449990?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=582

 _______________

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Statements by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America

 

Official Portrait of President Donald J. Trump


2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION POLL

A new Ipsos/Reuters poll ‘Beliefs Among Republicans’ shows 53% believe Donald Trump is the true President (I always knew America was smart!). 2020 Election was tainted 56%. The Election was stolen (and Rigged!) 61%. 

 

TRIUMP ADMINISTRATION RECORD-BREAKING COVID VACCINE DEVELOPMENT

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CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE STATEMENTS BY PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/news

__________________

IN MORE TRUMP NEWS

From the Desk of  Donald J. Trump


[EDITOR’S NOTE: The partisan Democrat New York Attorney General has launched a criminal investigation into the Trump Organization.]

This is a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history. It began the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower, and it’s never stopped. They wasted two years and $48 million in taxpayer dollars on Mueller and Russia Russia Russia, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and it continues to this day, with illegally leaked confidential information.

No other President in history has had to put up with what I have had to, and on top of all that, I have done a great job for our Country, whether it’s taxes, regulations, our Military, Veterans, Space Force, our Borders, speedy creation of a great vaccine (said to be a miracle!), and protecting the Second Amendment.

This is purely political, and an affront to the almost 75 million voters who supported me in the Presidential Election, and it’s being driven by highly partisan Democrat prosecutors.

New York City and State are suffering the highest crime rates in their history, and instead of going after murderers, drug dealers, human traffickers, and others, they come after Donald Trump.

Interesting that today a poll came out indicating I’m far in the lead for the Republican Presidential Primary and the General Election in 2024.

Our Country is broken, our elections are rigged, corrupt, and stolen, our prosecutors are politicized, and I will just have to keep on fighting like I have been for the last five years!

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

A rerun of 'Welcome Back, Carter'

By William Haupt III | The Center Square contributor

Former President Jimmy Carter - Nir Levy / Shutterstock.com

 “Nature never makes any blunders, when she makes a fool she means it.”

– Archibald Alexander

Television in the 1970s was an era of programming that dealt with integration, ethnicity, idealism and liberalism. "Welcome Back, Kotter" was a sitcom about a former student who returns to his old high school hoping to apply his college syllabus to a class of misfits called the Sweathogs. Gabe Kotter is a well-intended teacher who finds he can’t apply what he learned in college in the classroom.

Its theme song, “Welcome Back, Kotter,” sets the tone of the series. When Kotter returns to Brooklyn High he must ditch his textbook mythology and revert to his roots to instruct the unruly Sweathogs.

Gabe Kotter became aware, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” before the Sweathogs got the best of him. “Welcome Back, Kotter” was a very popular show with the number one song at the time we welcomed another visionary theorist, Jimmy Carter, into the White House in the 1970s.

Jimmy Carter ran on a platform of ethical government and world peace. Like Kotter, Jimmy Carter had a “vision” that he could renew voters’ trust in government and win over our enemies by being nice. He was a religious and moral pragmatist who felt theories alone could fix U.S. politics and foreign policy.

“I wish I had known when I was in the White House what I know now.”

– Jimmy Carter

Carter was a Walter Mitty liberal who never understood national governance. His first mistake was to surround himself with “Georgia elites” whose weaknesses were the same as his own. He never learned to separate decisions a president must make from those that should be made by advisers.

America faced real problems when Carter took office, including oil shortages and surging tensions with the Middle East and the USSR. Yet he failed miserably with his passive attempts to improve foreign policy. He wasted valuable time developing “theories” on how policy “should” be, not like it was.

“Music and art and love of nature transcend political and social boundaries.”

– Jimmy Carter

Carter’s domestic docket was a disaster. Industry needed energy to grow yet he tied the hands of energy producers with EPA restrictions. To limit dependence on oil from rogue nations, he raised taxes on imports to force conservation. This harmed industry and led to increased unemployment.

Oil prices jumped 25% due to Carter’s tax increases that raised the price of gas 10 cents a gallon overnight. Within months, prices on everything escalated to new highs. Carter petitioned the Fed to tighten the money supply on business lending. The Fed increased the lending rate by 3% to banks and cut back on consumer lending. As a result, the dollar's value plummeted on foreign exchanges.

By 1981, Carter’s botched economic polices brought about the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Three-fourths of all job losses were in the middle class goods-producing sector, residential construction and auto manufacturing. Unemployment and inflation soon reached 11%.

“We must adjust to these changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.”

– Jimmy Carter

Carter’s foreign policy was less efficient than his domestic failures. It was an undefined mixture of diplomacy and appeasing anti-American regimes guided by his moral and religious beliefs. He was dealing mostly with de facto dictators who saw this as a weakness and lost all fears for America.

He transferred the Panama Canal to General Torrijos, giving away all U.S. influence in the region.

Carter’s inept foreign policy gave radical Islamic extremists a world stage. Carter called Iran the “island of stability.” Yet shortly after he took office, anti-America Islamist students, under Ayatollah Khomeini, occupied the U.S. embassy for 444 days with 52 American hostages under his watch.

Carter’s inept diplomacy ignited the rise of radical Islam. Six Americans died in two botched rescue attempts and Carter gave up. The hostages were finally released when Ronald Reagan took office.

Unlike Gabe Kotter, Jimmy Carter never learned, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Joe Biden claims to be the next FDR. But many Americans say he’s the second coming of Jimmy Carter. Carter policies brought us gas lines, 11% inflation and Middle Eastern unrest. Biden is well on his way to do a repeat performance of Jimmy Carter, but he is even more dangerous!

“I was elected to repair our broken economy and foreign policy, and by God, I’ll do it!”

– Joe Biden

Figures from The Consumer Price Index show that, since Biden took office, inflation has accelerated at its fastest pace in 12 years. When Biden shut down the Keystone pipe line, and banned new drilling permits on federal lands, energy prices reached their highest point since 2014 and unemployment rose to 6%.

Consumer goods, energy and housing costs all rose 4.2% this year. According to Bloomberg, the GDP gained only a mere 0.8%. Dow Jones, the S&P and NASDAQ fell when Biden revealed plans to double the capital gains tax. Sen. Charles Grassley blamed the spike in prices and inflation on Biden’s trillions in stimulus spending; calling it “reminiscent of what Jimmy Carter did in the 1970s.”

Biden, like Carter entered office promising to heal our broken political system. But from day one he has been a progressive marionette. Instead of healing America, he has become a master at self-inflicted crises. His misdirection will bring us 1970s stagflation and foreign policies that empower only our enemies.

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful.”

– George Orwell

George Orwell wrote, “Political chaos begins when logic fails.” Biden claims the dismal April jobs numbers show how badly his two other proposals ($5 trillion for infrastructure and families) are needed. How can that help dig us out of this economic hole when these will be paid for with huge tax hikes on investments and business? And who ultimately pays these taxes? The middle class.

Biden, like Jimmy Carter, has proven this job is above his pay grade. Carter didn’t have the tools to govern on the national stage. And any tools Joe Biden possessed are long gone. Biden too has not realized “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” He continues to repeat his mistakes.

“Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.”

– Charlie Chaplin

A lot of people have been comparing Joe Biden to Jimmy Carter and rightfully so. But to be fair to Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden is making Jimmy Carter look a lot better. Carter was incapable of handling every crisis he had to face while he was president. On the other hand, Biden has proven he is a master at creating crisis after crisis and actually believes that he is doing something great.

“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

– Thomas Sowell

https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/op-ed-a-rerun-of-welcome-back-carter/article_8df5ad32-bc89-11eb-b1ef-ef452815abf7.html

Monday, May 24, 2021

God Save the Clarence Thomas Court

By  William McGurn |   The Wall Street Journal

In the highlights from a “Library of Congress” interview with Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court Justice talks about victimhood, the confirmation process and why he writes so many opinions. Images: AP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is not chief justice, but never before has he had the power and influence he has now.

For Justice Thomas, any chance he might become chief justice has long since passed. But at 72, he is coming into his own. For circumstances have now made it as plausible to speak of the Thomas court as the Roberts court.

The trigger was the replacement of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Justice Amy Coney Barrett. This move gave conservatives a 6-3 majority, depriving Chief Justice John Roberts of the ability to swing decisions to the liberal side—unless he manages to bring Brett Kavanaugh along with him.

This gives Justice Kavanaugh Joe Manchin-like powers over any case in which the chief might go south on his more conservative-minded colleagues. It’s a big change from the days when Justice Anthony Kennedy could easily move back and forth, here siding with conservatives to strike down speech limits in Citizens United v. FEC (2010), and there unearthing in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) a constitutional right for gay couples to marry.

For a while, Chief Justice Roberts looked as though he might become the new Anthony Kennedy. The chief pulled his own Kennedy in 2012, even before Justice Kennedy retired, when he saved ObamaCare by ruling that the individual mandate was a tax and thus constitutional. He has sided with the court’s liberal wing on other cases too, such as when he blocked the Trump administration’s bid to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. At the same time, the Roberts court has lately been shy to take up contentious issues from abortion to gun rights.

Enter Clarence Thomas. As Jan Crawford Greenburg noted in her 2007 book, “Supreme Conflict,” for many years Justice Thomas has been dismissed unfairly as Antonin Scalia’s sidekick. In fact, the men weren’t only brothers-in-arms but brothers—just listen to Justice Thomas’s tremendous eulogy for Scalia—whose significant disagreements on issues from natural law to deference to precedent helped each hone his own position while increasing their mutual respect.

Among the things these two great judges shared was an understanding that a majority opinion isn’t the only way to leave a mark. Like Scalia—whose greatest contribution may have been his fearless solitary 1988 dissent in Morrison v. Olson on the unconstitutionality of the independent counsel—many of Justice Thomas’s most powerful contributions haven’t come through majority opinions. Instead, they have come through dissents, concurrences and comments on denials of petitions to hear an appeal.

“His writings are often of the ‘emperor has no clothes’ variety where he argues that practice and Supreme Court precedent contradict the original meaning of the Constitution,” says John Yoo, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor who once clerked for Justice Thomas. “He isn’t really trying to win the case that day but is instead aiming for five, 10, 20 years ahead, when the court might come to its senses.”

Today the changes on the court have left Justice Thomas uniquely empowered. First, the new conservative majority now requires two defections for the liberals to triumph. Second, as the associate justice with the most seniority, it falls to Justice Thomas to assign the majority opinion when the chief justice comes down on the dissenting side. That presents Chief Justice Roberts with a dilemma: Since he can no longer dictate the outcome by himself, choosing the dissenting side without Justice Kavanaugh invites a Thomas majority opinion.

Take Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which the court recently decided to hear. It involves a Mississippi law that would limit most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. We don’t know if the chief voted to hear the case. But even if he didn’t, he now has an incentive to side with conservatives so he can write a majority opinion more narrow than what Justice Thomas would likely write.

Count this as a victory for Justice Thomas. Only 2½ years ago, he issued a tart dissent from the court’s decision not to consider another abortion-restriction case, accusing the court of ducking its responsibility. He called on the Roberts court to show some backbone: “Some tenuous connection to a politically fraught issue does not justify abdicating our judicial duty. If anything, neutrally applying the law is all the more important when political issues are in the background.” That’s the whole reason, he wrote, the Framers gave Supreme Court justices lifetime tenure.

He made similar remarks about the Second Amendment becoming “a disfavored right” after the court passed on several gun cases. As he rightly noted, this was when lower courts were flouting key Supreme Court rulings such as District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010).

Now the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case about a New York gun law and another about a Mississippi abortion restriction. If the court does the right thing, it will take up one dealing with Harvard’s discrimination against Asian-Americans.

On the Supreme Court, it’s good to be chief. But right now it may be better to be Clarence Thomas.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/god-save-the-clarence-thomas-court-11621893168?mod=opinion_lead_pos9